THE COLUMN

Issue No. 70/June 8, 1996

GOD

IVAN HOFFMAN

None of us can know if there is something called
God and if so, what is the nature of God. Accordingly, each of us has to
create the concept for ourselves. It takes a bit of faith to give ourselves
over to a power that cannot be seen nor felt in the traditional sense of
those words.

God has been apparent in my life through me,
through what I have experienced. What is God will vary from one person
to the next. Since our individual experiences vary, the way in which we
manifest God will surely vary as well.

When we are flexible, open in our hearts, able
to see ourselves from the outside, watch ourselves as we move through our
lives, we can perhaps then get a sense about the nature of God. But it
appears often that we can neither see nor feel God in our lives. It is
not that we are not paying attention or that God is not paying attention.
It is more likely that we have to refocus our lens, our scope. It is not
easy to see a God that seems to lack form and appears through who we are
and what we do. It is difficult to contemplate that God exists because
we exist, or that we are the embodiment of God.

Perhaps we should have some sort of checklist
of what to look for, what to feel, in order that we know that God is present
all day, everyday. We are not of course given this list, anymore than we
are given instructions on what life is about. We have to create our own
list as we go along. Your list will surely be different than mine but this
is how God has been apparent at varying times during the course of my life.
Perhaps you could make a list of your own.

A childhood filled with questions.

A teenage and young adult period filled with questions.

Joy and love and abundance.

Marriages.

Divorces.

My children and my dog Murray.

My friends.

My parents.

Relationships that, while they did not last, lasted.

My ability to write and teach.

My journey itself and the returning to the original
connection to God with which we all were born.

These experiences and others have all been God
because each has enabled me to grow. The very deep and at times abiding
pain that they have brought have been the engine that has moved me forward
toward what I believe is the goal in life, which is to reach spiritual
intimacy. Spiritual intimacy is the returning to that connection I mentioned
above. It is the attainment of enlightenment. It is the loss of all fear,
of all pain.

Each of these I experienced as God not necessarily
while the experience was ongoing. Indeed, it is most difficult to see God
in pain while we are in pain. But as I have reflected upon my journey,
it has become totally apparent to me that I have been guided and that my
path, with all its pain as well as its joy, is how God has appeared to
me.

And each experience was of value in and of
itself, standing alone. But each experience was also the precursor to and
preparation for the subsequent experience. We are given only those experiences
that we can surmount at any time in our journey, even though it appears
we cannot surmount them. And we are given ever more difficult experiences
because we have had the previous, less difficult ones that have laid the
groundwork. Keep in mind that we cannot look at only those experiences
we have had in this lifetime for I believe we have many lifetimes. The
continuum is all that matters, not the segments. The segments are the times
during which we are given the real life experiences in order that we may
grow. But they are only slices of the whole pie.

God may look different to each of us depending
upon our individual variables. But since our journey is all the same-a
journey to reach spiritual intimacy-underneath God is the same for all
of us.